Comparing the smooth, precise acceleration of a Tesla Plaid with its premium advanced technology to the visceral emotions that a 700HP gas-powered beast drums up is just not the same. You can feel the sound and vibration of a monster supercharged engine screaming as it violently pitches you forward.
It's the same reason why people buy Harleys instead of advanced Japanese superbikes, and it's the same reason why Harley sued Honda for copying their archaic engine design so that it would have the same vibration and sound (https://www.thedrive.com/article/11345/remember-when-harley-...).
This CEO is making a big mistake by completely eliminating them instead of just reducing their production numbers. It seems to be more of a political move than a smart business decision; just because he doesn't like that surge of emotion and raw fury emanating from a big-block V8 doesn't mean that others won't pony up big bucks to get it.
I know in my mind and heart that electrification is the way of the future. But a part of me is sad to lose iconic machines such as these. I'm a GenXer so I straddle that line of the past and the future. We're at the end of an era...
They both disappeared before (three times each), only to come back each time with a lot of fan fare. As long as the electric versions look like the originals (quite unlike the Mach-E) they'll do fine when they resurface.
Vehicles are interesting in that for the people that enjoy them there's a tendency towards brand loyalty in ways that don't exist for other products. This is especially true with the older generations. There are/have been web series, magazines, books, TV shows dedicated to Mopar, Ford, and GM. I can think of 5 "Ford guys" in my life without even trying. While that brand loyalty has waned a lot over the past couple of decades it still exists, and Dodge will most likely bring back a version of these to satisfy that base.
The main point is getting 99% of consumer transport electrified.
If you take your old stick shift gas car out for a 100 mile drive once a month, who cares.
You'll have plenty of cars to pick from when EVs start ushering out the old dirtburners into obsolescence. Hopefully the EV drivetrain gets so cheap that it becomes a tsunami.
It's not like EVs won't be fun to drive with low center of gravity skateboards and hyperfast acceleration. I would guess that after a few decades of driving EVs, the ICEs and their gear shifts and smell will quickly lose their charm with practically everyone.
I hope that with a really cheap and compact EV motor+battery, classic cars get massively retrofitted to be electic. You already see it in some auction cars. An electric motor is not that big. If/when a good compact solid state battery is mass produced, then you can probably cobbly a kit for the standard engine mounts that has the electric motor + batteries in one engine block replacement kit.
That's strange to me... I loved the Challenger growing up (Vanishing Point!) but always thought the mid 2000s relaunch of these muscle cars was a bit unimpressive and kind of soulless. Maybe that's just a "when did you grow up" thing; maybe they were objectively good cars. But, to me that era has been gone for quite a while.
People still shell out $ for these things, this is just elite consensus via regulation and informal decision making shaping the market. The muscle car dies its second death the same way it died its first.
Yes and no... The enormously large footprint of these cars gets them an allowance that lets their engines be less efficient. The US federal government has required that, if you want a powerful car, you also have to have a large car (or, especially, a large SUV, which gets off easy both for its large footprint and for being classified as 'light truck'.)
I like to think that people want to be shelling out $ for S2000s (great car, very inefficient in no small part because its design parameters are a function of Japanese efficiency requirements that centered on engine displacement), but that may be my bias.
Yet the massive trucks that obstruct the driver's vision to pedestrians, kids on bikes, and everything else are experiencing YoY growth.
The Challenger and Charger are terrible in terms of fuel efficiency but safer to people as drivers can see more of what's in front of them:
>Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) analyzed the details of 14,000 fatal pedestrian crashes, and they found that SUVs were twice as likely as cars to be making a left turn when the crash happened.
I ride my bike a fair bit and can you called it. Any time i am passed dangerously close it is ALWAYS a short-box pickup.
One road I frequent is used by large commercial trucks (dump trucks). These guys are professional, and move way over giving me a LOT of space. oddly enough, the pickup drivers watch the dump trucks do this, and yet refuse to move over even slightly?
i'm not sure what it is about people in pickups, but they need to do a better job educating the drivers as well.
Like seriously, if you watched a dump truck move, why were you unable to do this as well?
it isn't just about "visibility" but there seems to be some attitude problems around pickup truck drivers.
If you see a pickup with some company logo, 90% chance they will be decent and give you space. You see someone in their "pavement princess" all washed and polished, no F'ing way they will move over.
Just wait until those trucks are electric too and can accelerate as fast or faster than current electric cars.
But for some reason we don't care about car crashes and people getting run over and we keep designing highways and roads specifically to accelerate vehicles next to regular people and slower moving modes of transit and we keep locking people in their homes unless they drive 70 mph with near-instant acceleration to go half a mile to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread.
It's the driver. It's not the vehicle. Some of us have driven large trucks our entire lives without incident. You put a small person in a large Tahoe and there's an exponential decrease in visibility, coupled with never having driven such a large vehicle before and you get some bad statistics.
For proof go to any grocery store during peak hours and you're very likely to see two large vehicles side by side where one is parked nicely between the lines and the other is hanging over.
Can you upgrade parts of an electric vehicle to improve performance? Can you "tune" an electric vehicle? I honestly don't know; I don't own one and was never into tuning my vehicles for performance.
I think that hobby is more what draws folks than the raw performance.
This is entirely anecdotal; but since the new Corvette was released I've noticed that I seldom see any Challengers or Chargers on the road, in driveways, or...much of anywhere for that matter. I used to see a ton of regular consumers driving Chargers a few years ago but since then they are mostly police cars, which doesn't really count. Even less so for Challengers...
But I have seen the new Corvette a ton, perhaps because it resembles a Ferrari.
I remember when dodge had an unlimited lifetime powertrain warranty during the great recession. I almost bought a v8 challenger, but gas prices scared me off.
I believe this is mostly due to declining sales. My local dealer had good stock levels during the car shortages and the sales people were complaining about lots of Chargers, but no Grand Caravans. They could sell every mini van they produced, if they could get more.
Reading the statement carefully, I don't think they'll completely stop the production of the two cars. Just the ICE versions will discontinue. They have seemed to word it like this to create fomo.
Apparently Tesla has a way of making the car sound like whatever you want. Someone got the sound got theirs to sound like a Hellcat. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgXT5FXgNf_/
Some of this may be association with recent violence in addition to shifting towards greener pastures. The Challenger is a fun car to drive, but anecdotally, I know quite a few folks that can’t see one without envisioning it plowing through a crowd of protestors.
[+] [-] gunapologist99|3 years ago|reply
Comparing the smooth, precise acceleration of a Tesla Plaid with its premium advanced technology to the visceral emotions that a 700HP gas-powered beast drums up is just not the same. You can feel the sound and vibration of a monster supercharged engine screaming as it violently pitches you forward.
It's the same reason why people buy Harleys instead of advanced Japanese superbikes, and it's the same reason why Harley sued Honda for copying their archaic engine design so that it would have the same vibration and sound (https://www.thedrive.com/article/11345/remember-when-harley-...).
This CEO is making a big mistake by completely eliminating them instead of just reducing their production numbers. It seems to be more of a political move than a smart business decision; just because he doesn't like that surge of emotion and raw fury emanating from a big-block V8 doesn't mean that others won't pony up big bucks to get it.
[+] [-] stuff4ben|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brodouevencode|3 years ago|reply
Vehicles are interesting in that for the people that enjoy them there's a tendency towards brand loyalty in ways that don't exist for other products. This is especially true with the older generations. There are/have been web series, magazines, books, TV shows dedicated to Mopar, Ford, and GM. I can think of 5 "Ford guys" in my life without even trying. While that brand loyalty has waned a lot over the past couple of decades it still exists, and Dodge will most likely bring back a version of these to satisfy that base.
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|3 years ago|reply
If you take your old stick shift gas car out for a 100 mile drive once a month, who cares.
You'll have plenty of cars to pick from when EVs start ushering out the old dirtburners into obsolescence. Hopefully the EV drivetrain gets so cheap that it becomes a tsunami.
It's not like EVs won't be fun to drive with low center of gravity skateboards and hyperfast acceleration. I would guess that after a few decades of driving EVs, the ICEs and their gear shifts and smell will quickly lose their charm with practically everyone.
I hope that with a really cheap and compact EV motor+battery, classic cars get massively retrofitted to be electic. You already see it in some auction cars. An electric motor is not that big. If/when a good compact solid state battery is mass produced, then you can probably cobbly a kit for the standard engine mounts that has the electric motor + batteries in one engine block replacement kit.
They can pipe in simulated engine block sound.
I will so miss stick shift however.
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwarner|3 years ago|reply
Mazda Miata is my crazy bet for both, but what do I know.
[+] [-] mrelectric|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jollyllama|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tbihl|3 years ago|reply
I like to think that people want to be shelling out $ for S2000s (great car, very inefficient in no small part because its design parameters are a function of Japanese efficiency requirements that centered on engine displacement), but that may be my bias.
[+] [-] strict9|3 years ago|reply
The Challenger and Charger are terrible in terms of fuel efficiency but safer to people as drivers can see more of what's in front of them:
>Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) analyzed the details of 14,000 fatal pedestrian crashes, and they found that SUVs were twice as likely as cars to be making a left turn when the crash happened.
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/suv-and-pickup-tr...
[+] [-] kennend3|3 years ago|reply
One road I frequent is used by large commercial trucks (dump trucks). These guys are professional, and move way over giving me a LOT of space. oddly enough, the pickup drivers watch the dump trucks do this, and yet refuse to move over even slightly?
i'm not sure what it is about people in pickups, but they need to do a better job educating the drivers as well.
Like seriously, if you watched a dump truck move, why were you unable to do this as well?
it isn't just about "visibility" but there seems to be some attitude problems around pickup truck drivers.
If you see a pickup with some company logo, 90% chance they will be decent and give you space. You see someone in their "pavement princess" all washed and polished, no F'ing way they will move over.
[+] [-] ericmay|3 years ago|reply
But for some reason we don't care about car crashes and people getting run over and we keep designing highways and roads specifically to accelerate vehicles next to regular people and slower moving modes of transit and we keep locking people in their homes unless they drive 70 mph with near-instant acceleration to go half a mile to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread.
[+] [-] brodouevencode|3 years ago|reply
It's the driver. It's not the vehicle. Some of us have driven large trucks our entire lives without incident. You put a small person in a large Tahoe and there's an exponential decrease in visibility, coupled with never having driven such a large vehicle before and you get some bad statistics.
For proof go to any grocery store during peak hours and you're very likely to see two large vehicles side by side where one is parked nicely between the lines and the other is hanging over.
[+] [-] outside1234|3 years ago|reply
Said another way, I don't understand why going electric precludes muscle cars.
If anything, it seems like they have an opportunity to make them even faster when they are electrified.
[+] [-] mitchell_h|3 years ago|reply
Electric cars just can't reproduce that. they can be faster, quicker, better off the line...but they don't FEEL the same.
[+] [-] RajT88|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] garyfirestorm|3 years ago|reply
https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/dodge-charger-electric-...
https://youtu.be/xZNXVuzPio4
[+] [-] lolsal|3 years ago|reply
I think that hobby is more what draws folks than the raw performance.
[+] [-] varikin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InitEnabler|3 years ago|reply
So there's some good news for the Mopar fanboys.
[+] [-] dannyphantom|3 years ago|reply
But I have seen the new Corvette a ton, perhaps because it resembles a Ferrari.
[+] [-] cudgy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wing-_-nuts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teeray|3 years ago|reply
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